There were two words everywhere late last month after former British Prime Minister Tony Blair treated us to a 5,700-word essay on UK politics.
The 73-year-old, several commentators and media outlets said, had made a “rare” intervention. For others, the intervention was “extraordinary”.
Journalism depends on accuracy, so let’s consider both words: firstly, the intervention was about as rare as an arms industry lobbyist in Westminster. But yes, it was extraordinary - though not in the way his prostrating acolytes meant.
On foreign policy, the terrain on which history will most harshly judge him, what was extraordinary was that almost 30 years after coming to power on a wave of unprecedented excitement around a new British leader, and nearly 25 years since the disastrous invasion of Iraq, Blair appears to have developed no new thinking at all.
The headline on his missive’s foreign policy section was spot on, though: “The New World Order”. Blair rightly recognises that the post-World War II order is finished, but he points out that what will replace it has not yet been fully cemented.
